tag:brnt.co,2014:/feedBernat Fages2016-11-14T14:13:54-08:00Bernat Fageshttp://brnt.coSvbtle.comtag:brnt.co,2014:Post/helpbot2016-11-14T14:13:54-08:002016-11-14T14:13:54-08:00Helpbot, Slack bots and the future of work<p>Yesterday <a href="http://blog.assist.ai/helpbot-a-slack-bot-for-your-zendesk/">we officially announced our newest product</a>, which is <strong>a Slack bot for interacting with Zendesk called <a href="https://helpbot.rocks">Helpbot</a></strong>. It’s another realization of our efforts for innovating in the Customer Service space.</p>
<p>Our reasoning for building Helpbot went like this:</p>
<p><strong>Most Zendesk users only use its very core functionality.</strong> This is a great example of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle">Pareto principle</a>. This core functionality can easily be replicated, and probably explains why there are so many Help Desk SaaS competitors out there.</p>
<p>These are what we call <strong>casual users</strong>, meaning Customer Service is not their main responsibility. Casual users don’t spend much time on Zendesk and they don’t even keep it open. They just log in from time to time to check it. All in all, they’re not Zendesk power users and would be just fine using a much simpler support system. One that’s less complex, less cluttered with functionality and easier to learn.</p>
<p>As <strong>Slack is increasingly becoming a hub for internal communications</strong> at companies and teams, more time is spent inside it. It’s a tool that everyone at a company is familiar with, regardless of their role.</p>
<p>Slack is encouraging its users to integrate their workflows into Slack, and their APIs are enabling them to do so. <strong>Slack has the potential to become a Command Line Interface for non-techies.</strong> </p>
<p>This suggests there’s an opportunity for integrating workflows from many departments into Slack, and we’re already seeing some successful examples in <a href="http://statsbot.co">Marketing</a>, <a href="https://troops.ai">Sales</a>, <a href="https://www.officevibe.com/slack">Human Resources</a> or <a href="https://www.talkus.io">Customer Service</a>.</p>
<p>Most of Zendesk’s functionality can be accessed to through their API. What this means is that we can abstract Zendesk’s core functionality, the one that casual users need, and put it into Slack.</p>
<p><strong>Slack bots are never going to replace Salesforce, Zendesk or any other vertically focused software</strong>, because power users need complex UIs that let them accomplish complex tasks. That’s other side of the Pareto coin.</p>
<p>However, for casual users a Slack bot such as <a href="https://helpbot.rocks">Helpbot</a> is probably a better choice.</p>
tag:brnt.co,2014:Post/the-future-of-customer-service2016-10-23T14:15:44-07:002016-10-23T14:15:44-07:00The Future of Customer Service<p>The rise of the Internet has brought many changes to how companies operate. Because companies can offer their services online worldwide, the size of the pie that they can get has increased dramatically. However, each market has turned to be more of a winner-takes-all market, where the leader can take the whole pie because it can sell anywhere with virtually no additional cost. This translates to having more competition and being at more risk of becoming a commodity.</p>
<p>In order to subsist, or ideally win the market, companies need to be great at everything they do. And one of the parts where they need to be great at is customer service. In a world where users are, if anything, more demanding and more lazy, companies know that they need to provide excellent customer service, otherwise customers will leave to another competitor.</p>
<p>Now, with increasing numbers of customer queries there is a challenge to scale customer support teams responsibly while reducing response times and keeping the costs reasonable.</p>
<p>One of the biggest, more frustrating, problems that we have seen customer support teams have is one of having to reply to repetitive, generic queries that they have already replied to many times in the past. Very often, these queries could be found with a simple look up on their FAQ or Help Center, but most customers don’t bother doing that. And what is worse, these queries usually account for 50%, sometimes even more, of the total amount of queries they receive.</p>
<p>At <a href="https://assist.ai">Assist</a>, we have set ourselves with the goal of helping agents not having to write the same answer twice. There is a lot of content produced in every single answer that is never reused, and we think this is a shame. Imagine if there was a system 10x better than macros, that brought up the most suitable answers based on the context of the query. Not only for the top 50 queries, but to every single question that’s already been answered in the past. Wouldn’t that be powerful? Then, agents would be able to focus more on solving unseen and more interesting issues and customers would be more satisfied because their needs would be addressed in less time.</p>
<p>The way we see the future of Customer Service is that AI will help agents be more productive and focus on what matters most. Customers won’t need to read through manuals, help centers and long FAQs as AI systems will be able to answer simple, Tier 1 like questions. This will also let agents focus on solving more interesting problems, especially the ones that require further actions and investigation. At the end, that’s the fun part of doing customer service, isn’t it?</p>
<p>All in all, Customer service has become more important than ever. Want to help your team get some of their time back? Drop us a line at <a href="mailto:hello@assist.ai">hello@assist.ai</a>, we’d love to help out.</p>
<p><em>I originally published this <a href="http://blog.assist.ai/the-future-of-customer-service/">in our blog</a>. Reposting here because I still think this is very true, and relevant today.</em></p>
tag:brnt.co,2014:Post/content-content-content2015-07-29T14:23:09-07:002015-07-29T14:23:09-07:00Content, content and more content... Introducing Precious<p>One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that we get to access so many sources of knowledge and information. All of them provide us with way more content than we can actually absorb or process. Most users can’t keep up with this massive influx of content, but fear of missing out makes us want to catch up with all this information, usually at the expense of something else we enjoy doing as well. But not even this way can we cover all sources we’d like to keep track of.</p>
<p>In the blogs era the most common solution was to use an RSS reader. RSS readers are a very interesting solution to the problem because they operate on a standard that most content generation platforms (or arguably, used to) support. However, while RSS readers solve the problem of fetching all these articles scattered along many different sources and presenting them to the user in a consistent way within a single place, they still don’t solve the pain of being overwhelmed by too much content.</p>
<p>One proxy to the problem is to use, either manual (done by a human) or automatic (done by an algorithm and probably based on some metrics), curation. Blog owners, or even specialists on a certain topic, are increasingly switching to the digest email newsletter paradigm, where they send a periodic newsletter curated with the content that they think is most relevant to them and to their audience. This poses an improvement to the RSS reader because email is more democratised as a platform and the content is already filtered by a reliable source. I really believe newsletters are the way to go for content creators because they can reach a much larger audience, and this audience uses the platform itself way more often that they would if there was a separate app/website for reading content, let alone having to check each source separately.</p>
<p>Digest email newsletters can be a very effective approach to content curation and distribution. However, there are many content platforms that ignore this paradigm. That is probably due to the fact that they are not interested in allowing anybody to consume their content out of their platform since it would be less profitable for them to do so. I believe that’s the wrong approach to take because a user who doesn’t get a way to consume the most relevant content in a regulated way might as well quit from the service. However, some kind of summary on the most relevant stuff might help keep a user onboard and might even encourage her to consume more content if the summary hasn’t been enough.</p>
<p>One of my favourite sources of content that doesn’t provide any kind of curated digest of the best content in their platform is Twitter. And it’s frustrating as a user because I just quitted checking it after checking it too regularly because I feared missing out. For a long time, I’ve been missing getting a daily newsletter with the most relevant tweets on my Timeline so that I can stay updated even when I’m too busy to check social media. Well, today I’m happy to show <a href="http://preciousdigest.com">Precious Digest</a>, a daily digest newsletter that’s automatically generated from the most relevant tweets on your Timeline and sent to your inbox everyday. The algorithm that is responsible for curation is pretty simple and will have to be tuned for sure. But I’m hopeful it will be good enough to be useful to me and to many others.</p>
<p>As a last note, here’s the links for the websites that send some of my favourite newsletters: <a href="http://calacanis.com/">Jason Calacanis</a>, <a href="http://ben-evans.com/news/">Ben Evans</a>, <a href="http://tech.eu/newsletter/">Tech.eu</a>, <a href="http://www.hndigest.com/">HN Digest</a>, [Product Hunt](<a href="http://www.producthunt.com">www.producthunt.com</a>), <a href="http://quora.com">Quora</a>…</p>
tag:brnt.co,2014:Post/a-new-journey2014-07-29T09:51:50-07:002014-07-29T09:51:50-07:00A new journey<p>Four weeks after releasing <a href="https://calloud.com">Calloud</a>, and now that the most immediate post-release issues have been sorted out, here’s a retrospective on why I’ve decided to start it.</p>
<p><a href="https://calloud.com">Calloud</a> is a SaaS that sells calling software for businesses with a strong Internet presence who want to increase their inbound calls, usually to grow their sales or improve their customer service. Businesses can use it to create call widgets that can be placed on their website, emails or online ads in order to be reached easily. The cool thing about these call widgets is that they let anybody to start a call from their computer without using their phone and for free (wherever they are located). It just takes one click.</p>
<p>All in all, <a href="https://calloud.com">Calloud</a> makes it dead easy for website owners to be contacted by their visits. Basically, like <a href="http://www.olark.com">Olark</a> but for voice. </p>
<p>There are many solutions for instant, written communications for websites, such as <a href="http://www.olark.com">Olark</a> or <a href="https://www.zopim.com">Zopim</a>. These tools are focused on drastically lowering the barriers of starting a conversation, in order to help their customers make more money. But, as much as there is a decent amount of websites that use tools of this sort, such tools for voice do not really exist or are used. Websites are still stuck relying on their phone number exclusively, which you can usually find on top or at the bottom of any webpage. It’s like five years ago, when all websites listed their email somewhere on their webpage and that’s it. Nobody used live chat software or embeddable contact widgets on their landing page. At most, some websites had a contact form buried within their webpage. Actually, that’s still quite a common scenario today.</p>
<p>If you are somewhat into marketing stuff, you probably have heard about inbound marketing. Inbound marketing basically means getting people to find and come to you instead of you trying to reach them (outbound marketing). Inbound marketing is pretty popular nowadays because it’s the best way to attract quality traffic to your site. If you have a good inbound marketing strategy, anybody who comes to your site will be genuinely interested in what you’re selling in some way, otherwise they wouldn’t have come in the first place. </p>
<p>Yet, it is very likely that your landing page won’t be able to convert the majority of your prospects. These are only speculations, yet plausible situations: most of your visits won’t be sure whether your solution can fit their needs, they might not have taken enough time to understand your product completely and so on. But many of these undecided prospects will contact you if it’s very easy for them to do so. </p>
<p>That’s where these kind of tools come into play. With written communication we have already seen how this market has developed, and it will continue to do so because these tools have proven to be very effective and the market is still underserved. Embeddable voice communication for websites hasn’t developed yet probably due to constraints that are inherent with it. However, with recent advances in hardware (most computers bring microphone and speakers nowadays) and software (long life WebRTC!) it feels like now it’s the right time to launch this kind of product. Honestly, I don’t know if <a href="https://calloud.com">Calloud</a> will get it right, but it is an exciting opportunity to build a sustainable business and to learn from many fields that are foreign to an engineer like me, regardless of the outcome.</p>
tag:brnt.co,2014:Post/its-practically-impossible-bitcoin2013-11-28T15:05:28-08:002013-11-28T15:05:28-08:00It's practically impossible to buy Bitcoin (if you don't try hard)<p>I’ve recently heard many people say that it is very hard to buy Bitcoin (or Litecoin, Namecoin, Peercoin…). I’m already used to hearing many people claim that Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme and that it’s a massive bubble which is going to burst very hard in the same way I’m used to hear many people say they wanted to buy but that they couldn’t. </p>
<p>I can stand haters, but I can’t stand whiners. And I’ve heard people too many times say it’s impossible for X to do Y, especially with Bitcoin. When a new technology/solution/product comes up, don’t expect it to be easy to use. Anything new and revolutionary that’s released will only be adopted by people who really trust in it. Thus, those who really believe in it will make the effort to get it no matter what it takes. As that product becomes more widespread, it will also be easier to reach. That’s how it goes.</p>
<p><a href="https://svbtleusercontent.com/hs1nnzpm44ymva.png"><img src="https://svbtleusercontent.com/hs1nnzpm44ymva_small.png" alt="20110714211709!DiffusionOfInnovation.png"></a></p>
<p>It’s very easy to watch Bitcoin grow from your comfortable couch and say you already predicted it would increase this way. It’s very easy to treat yourself with some self-complacency saying that you would have already bought back in 2011 but that you couldn’t because it’s very hard. Sorry but it doesn’t count. Bitcoin was harder to grab at that time, but it still allowed those who really believed in it to get some. As time goes by, it will be easier to get into the game. It’s just your will what determines at what stage you will enter. The rest doesn’t count.</p>
tag:brnt.co,2014:Post/trade-shows2013-11-24T05:49:53-08:002013-11-24T05:49:53-08:00Exhibiting at trade shows sucks<p>Going to trade shows as a visitor is always fun. You get to see lots of different products, you can get many freebies and you can always end the day by going sightseeing, or <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mwc/9903033/MWC-Mobile-Wasted-Congress.html">hanging out in some parties that the staff or some exhibitors are organizing</a>. Personally you’ll probably enjoy it, but the expense associated with exhibiting in a trade fair usually doesn’t compensate for the value it can bring to your business.</p>
<p>Last month, I attended the Web Summit, one of those startup/tech conferences, as an exhibitor. I had been to trade fairs many times, but I had never had the chance to exhibit at one of these before. My cofounders and I were very excited since it was the first time we’d had a booth to show <a href="http://www.joinerapp.com">Joiner</a> to all the attendees who would supposedly come in hordes to hear about the next hot products. Yet, of all the visitors who walked by, I noticed how seldom people actually paid attention to what others were doing. Let alone getting something positive when approaching these (few) interested visitors. It felt like being a small banner ad in a webpage cluttered with dozens of other ads.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s worth it to exhibit at a trade show, at least in our case and many others. Your company will fork out a good amount of cash to get a good booth, and if it aspires to create an impact, this has a cost as well. The only booths that get attention are those which have a big shiny space with cool stuff to demo, lots of swag to give away and a contest going on. If you don’t comply with all of this, you are severely diminishing your chances of succeeding in your quest to attract the swarm. OK, you’ve killed it there, so what? What has your <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_acquisition_cost">CAC</a> been? I bet there are many better ways to spend your funding if you want to acquire users. </p>
<p>Oh yeah, it turns out you’re not there for “land grab” purposes. I understand. You’ve actually come to “help” the press and investors notice you. I have bad news for you. The press (at least the relevant press, that’s what you are looking for) won’t bother coming to the exhibition venue just to be spammed by dozens of irrelevant startups. If you were remarkable they would probably have already heard of you. The same applies to investors. Investors don’t just go to a startups trade show to start offering startups funding. This doesn’t go this way just as girls never come up to ask me if I’m single in a nightclub. Meetings with investors are closed through introductions, and you won’t get introductions without being awesome. Just get to be awesome at whatever you’re doing and don’t worry, the right people will find you.</p>
tag:brnt.co,2014:Post/prologue2013-10-28T12:14:24-07:002013-10-28T12:14:24-07:00Prologue<blockquote class="large">
<p>It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.</p>
<p><em>Mark Twain</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>When I received the invitation to start writing on Svbtle I was very surprised. </p>
<p>Frankly, I didn’t expect to be invited to write here. I could enumerate many reasons for not being invited to this awesome network of writers and startup superstars:</p>
<ul>
<li>I don’t have the habit of writing. Aside from publishing occasional 140-character fragments of text and a few answers on Quora.</li>
<li>English isn’t my mother tongue (these are Catalan and Spanish in my case) and my English level is still far from proficient.</li>
<li>I am not one of <a href="http://dcurt.is">these</a> <a href="http://daltoncaldwell.com/">popular</a> <a href="http://500hats.com/">guys</a> in the startup community.</li>
<li>I have indeed (co)founded a <a href="http://www.joinerapp.com">startup</a>, but we are still far away from having real traction and being known.</li>
</ul>
<p>But the truth is that I have wanted to start writing for a long time. Writing is a good mental exercise. It helps you to reason. It encourages you to expand your thoughts on any matter. It forces you to structure your points on something. And bonus points, it is a good chance to practice the language, learn new vocabulary and expressions.</p>
<p>I feel very motivated to start posting my views on many broad topics. These will include but not restrict to startups, design, technology and innovation. I have only set one rule to myself: to avoid writing technical posts, let alone posting a line of code at all. I know it will be hard since programming is what I mostly do whenever I have a computer nearby.</p>
<p>So, I have decided I will disregard Mr. Twain. Even if I demonstrate I am a fool I am sure it will be worth it. I have nothing to lose.</p>